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Perimeter Church invites the community to see the “Festival of Trees” in its new Atrium this Christmas season. The Atrium opened in May 2017, and features the new Atrium Café, and for the Christmas Season, the Festival of Trees.

The Festival’s trees are decorated by different Perimeter ministries, and highlight different ways Perimeter serves the community. The Festival of Trees begins Saturday, December 1, and will run through the holiday season. Saturday evenings, and Sunday mornings, enjoy live music, and special holiday treats. You can sit, talk and enjoy some coffee and delicious food from Perimeter’s new Atrium Café as you take in the holiday sights and sounds.

In addition, Perimeter invites the community to its Christmas Eve Services on Sunday, December 24 at 11:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m., 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. Perimeter’s Christmas Eve services include a candlelight singing of “Silent Night”, and other beloved Christmas Carols, and a special message for the children in the audience. Childcare will be available for ages infant through age 5 for all services with the exception of the 9 p.m. service. Perimeter Church is located at 9500 Medlock Bridge Road, Johns Creek, Ga. 30097, at the corner of Highway 141 and Old Alabama Road in Johns Creek.

On a side note: It was disclosed by the public works director during the 141 widening town hall, acceleration lanes will not be allowed with 6 lanes, as they are considered too dangerous. This will impact All the subdivisions on Medlock Bridge Rd.

Also as a result of the widening of Old Alabama Rd, there has been an increase of accidents at Perimeter Church, some very serious. There is a blind spot with the additional lanes and is very difficult to cross over quickly enough into the entrance.

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As expected, Action Outdoor Advertising submitted their 8th Billboard application AFTER the election.

It will take approximately 6 weeks for GDOT to issue their permit. Construction could happen early in January 2018.

The Giant 48 feet wide, double-sided LED sign will be close to the road, 10 feet from the Right of Way, even though in the original 2007 application, 40 feet was applied for.

The location is 10960 Medlock Bridge Rd, Johnson Automotive Group.

Below are screengrabs from Freedom of Information Act Requests

Here is the applicant and property owner:

On the bottom of the form for Approved uses for this zoning type: the billboard company handwrote:

“Permitted Pursuant to the terms of a legally binding settlement agreement between City of Johns Creek & Applicant”

Why? The property prohibited billboards when it was zoned.

Here is a screengrab from the zoning stipulations.

It is understood that the Fulton County Sign Ordinance was ruled unconstitutional. However, these restrictions were in the zoning for the property. Certainly, there were legal and customary definitions of what a billboard is that could have been defended in court. Where would the City find the legal definition for a service station or commercial amusements?

Courtesy of the settlement Mayor Bodker and Cori Davenport negotiated, this will be the 3rd billboard on land prohibiting such structures within the zoning.

Again, we need to ask, if the billboard companies had a legal right to erect billboards on land that prohibited billboards, why was a settlement necessary?

If the billboard companies had a legal right to erect 31 LED billboards, why did they settle for 10?

We have seen devastation with a large amount of land clear-cut on Bell rd for the new subdivisions Bellmoore (~650 homes) & Brookmere (194 homes), Adair Manor as well as Dean Gardens, trees removed as a result of the billboard settlement, etc.

Although the City has a tree preservation ordinance, requirements are not as stringent as other municipalities, and variances & exceptions are often given within rezonings allowing the developers to squeeze in more houses. Below is an example.

New homes in Bellmoore average a lot size of .13.

In nearby Sugar Mill lots average .40, with trees and landscaping between the houses. Tree preservation benefits the community in many ways, from reduced environmental impact to lower density, fewer cars, and school enrollment.

Look at the agendas that will be released later today and provide your thoughts on three of the most important issues on the agenda for the work session and 3 on the city council and discuss why they are important and what would you ask during the meetings and what you want to see accomplished.

Below is the response we received from Post 3 Candidate John Bradberry. We did not receive a response from Post 3 Candidate Vicki Horton.

Thoughts from John Bradberry:

TSPLOST

The Council Quarterly Workshop is troubling. The process is being driven by a regional effort, not a Johns Creek resident focus.. Once again, the T-SPLOST efforts that we were told were a POTENTIAL list of projects that would be brought forward for discussion before being approved are in fact being treated as done deals. The projects in the agenda attachment are identified as COMMITTED. This includes the widening of 141 from the river to McGinnis Ferry, Jones Bridge Road widening, Old Alabama Road widening, State Bridge Road widening (BOTH sides of 141), and SR120 widening (a GDOT project). That’s approximately $64MM in road widening versus $3.4MM to improve the Intelligent Traffic System and Medlock Bridge Transit Related Signal improvements. Are we really saying we’ll spend 20x to widen our roads without exploring signal improvements or other commonsense options first?

We can’t pave our way to excellence. We have to pursue credible alternatives that preserve the quality of life and residential character of Johns Creek.

Comprehensive Land Use Plan – Draft

We are more than six weeks from seeing what the next version of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan will look like. We have been told that overall densities will be lowered. However, I feel it is still premature to comment on the CLUP until we see the updated draft.

One of the issues included in the first draft is the creation of work force housing in Johns Creek. Is this still part of the plan? This is worrisome.

The City of Johns Creek is defined by it’s political boundaries. Those boundaries do not equate to an absence of work force housing available at a reasonable distance from the job. To insist that we are somehow responsible to provide workforce housing as a community is beyond the responsibilities within our City Charter.

Strategic Plan Update

Now that it has been a year and half since we passed the Strategic Plan, are there items that should be adjusted to ensure that they are in alignment with the overarching goal of preserving Johns Creek as a premier bedroom community? Since it is our premier bedroom community that has been the source of so much good for our quality of life, we must ensure that everything we do enhances that and does not weaken it.

An elected official’s first and foremost responsibility should be to represent the citizens that live and pay taxes here. Supporting residents and businesses with efficient city services and fair city fees should also be an important element in advancing the city’s goals.

It is clear that Johns Creek’s biggest draw for families is our residential character and the great schools. Families have sacrificed and worked hard to be in this community so their children can get a great education and quality of life. People do not want high density development and specifically want to limit or eliminate future apartments. I agree. If a new city center is advanced by the mayor and council – I will do everything I can with the land development (comprehensive) plan and other measures to protect our residents. Our community needs protection from additional traffic and high density apartments that could adversely impact home values and put pressure on schools and possibly force rezoning by Fulton County due to so many additional students.

Traffic and high density is what we don’t want. I will work to protect Johns creeks residents from the concerning trends we are seeing.

Work Session Agenda

1. TSPLOST State Bridge Road Engineering Task Order

Widening State Bridge Road does not keep the lights green longer on State Bridge, so this is a partial solution at the very best. We already know that the normal suggestion for congestion issues is to widen the roads. But are there more intelligent solutions? Is some of the congestion due to green lights that are too short in duration, for instance?

It’s important that we understand the causes and the nature of the delays as well as the magnitude of the delays during the morning, noon, and evening rush hours. I want to see a simulation of the stretch of road, including the changes in the light timing that will provide the improvement in traffic flow. A third lane should increase the flow of traffic by 45-50% so clearly we are missing some element of performance improvement.

We need to see the design plans for each intersection along the route. Will they be optimized to reduce the amount of time traffic will be stopped on State Bridge Road to accommodate the traffic from the side streets and shopping areas? Will we be providing two left turn lanes(or three) at every intersection so that more vehicles can turn in a shorter amount of time? Will we be creating three left turn lanes as we assisted Gwinnett County with at McGinnis Ferry Road and Peachtree Industrial Blvd? Are we planning to improve the performance of all the intersections so that you should never have to wait for more than one traffic light cycle during your trip?

Currently the intersection at the Publix/Target intersection on State Bridge Road has a shared straight and left turn lane. The intersection would handle many more vehicles in less time if each side had two left turn lanes and two through turn lanes and dedicated right turn lanes, with an intelligent traffic controller that was properly programmed.

Also, could we gather traffic leaving shopping areas at a central location, to be controlled more effectively by a wider and more efficient intersection, and reduce the number of traffic lights needed?

Do we have the right expertise to perform the kind of performance analysis we need? If not, then we need to make sure we get the expertise we need hired.

We should not just be rebuilding State Bridge Road to handle the current volume. We should be rebuilding it to handle traffic in the most efficient and productive way for decades to come.

2. Regarding the overall TSPLOST projects and the State Bridge Road project specifically, what if any changes is Public Works looking to make to the awarded contracts? Are you including any new language that holds the contractor more accountable for the time schedule and performance? Residents of Johns Creek have experienced firsthand the effects of slow progress by road contractors. This slow progress makes our already congested roads a greater headache for longer than necessary. This is an additional price paid by our residents and contractors should be held accountable. Since the time of our residents is valuable and is so important to their quality of life, what performance penalties or rewards can we put in place to guarantee the execution of projects after they have been awarded? I want to make sure that we are getting a good value for the taxpayers’ money AND time.

Final Thoughts

I am concerned not just about what is on the agenda, but what is NOT. As a council member, I would take my role as a watchdog very seriously because what we do as a city government has a direct impact on the lives of our residents. And nothing makes a bigger impact on them than traffic. My understanding from the Public Works presentation to Council at the work session on Oct. 16 was that the Staff was going to come back to the Oct. 30 work session with a specific problem statement for our traffic and recommendations (including alternatives) to address that problem statement. Now it is Nov. 13 and we still do not have that deliverable. What is the status of this? We have got to make traffic relief our top priority. I will continue to hold us accountable to the residents until we make real progress on traffic.

Residential. the city’s basic level of service for residential units shall be as follows: A minimum of once a week garbage pick-up, once a week recycling pick up, once a week yard trimmings, and once a month bulky trash pick up.

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FREE RECYCLING

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Roswell Recycling Center is located in Alpharetta, near Northpoint mall.